Eurocup. BC Khimki vs. Maccabi H.15 january 2014

Due to outstanding team effort and great defense BC Khimki destroyed Israeli champion Maccabi Haifa Bazan at home and continued its winning streak — 87-48 (19-5, 26-19, 28-9, 14-15). The next game our team will play in Klaipeda with Neptunas on Sunday, January 19, 2014. The beginning of the meeting is at 20.00 msk.

BC Khimki: Loncar (18 + 10 rebounds), Popovic (14 + 4 rebounds), Davis (10 + 3 rebounds + 2 assists), Koponen (10 + 4 rebounds + 2 assists + 1 steal), Vyaltsev (8 + 2 assists + 2 steals), Monya (7 + 4 rebounds + 4 assists), Ilnitsky (6 + 2 rebounds + 1 assists), Green (5 + 9 assists + 4 rebounds), Dudu (4), Zakharov (3 + 3 rebounds +1 assist + 1 steals), Balashov (2 + 3 blocks + 2 assists), Augustine

Rimas Kurtinaitis, BC Khimki head coach:

— I would like to congratulate my players on their attitude to this game, dedication and devotion as it’s a very good example to everyone how you should compete and try to do your best despite some technical mistakes and turnovers in the offense. I think that diligence and endeavor are better than skill. I didn’t expect the game to be so easy cause Maccabi is a very good team that won Israeli championship last season and competed with Maccabi T-A in their previous game. I would like to give credit for my players for their game in defense.

Paul Davis, BC Khimki center:

— We knew it would be a very tough task for us, probably the hardest in the Eurocup so far. We came out with great focus from first minute and really happy right now. Hopefully we continued our winning streak. I think our defense in the first quarter was the main problem for Maccabi, as our defense won this game. They are a good team and we’ll have a return game. So regardless of the score we played focused all forty minutes.

Danny Franco, Maccabi Haifa Bazan head coach:

— It was a tough night for us as we played against one of the best teams in Europe. We could play much better and should do it but it was the team on the other side that was much better than us in every aspect of the game. On a long run we can learn how to compete with such kind of players. Khimki is probably the best team we met so far. We should have played our best level and put this game behind us, as tough as it is and move further. Our competition is not with Khimki but with the other teams in our group and we’ll try to get the second ticket to qualify for the next round. We have great respect for Khimki and excellent coach Kurtinaitis. I wish them all the best in next games.

Dagan Yivzori, Maccabi Haifa Bazan guard:

— We came to Khimki as a clear underdog and had expectations to develop our defense and try be aggressive. We didn’t really show up in the first half and Khimki shot very high percentage shots tonight. That’s it – the game was done after first quarter pretty much. We lacked energy to bounce back to the game. No doubt, we lost to a better team. So we’ll try to best other teams in our group if we want to qualify for the next round.